Publisher Description

"Forty years old and flourishing--a remarkable record for a small nonprofit press--Alice James Books deserves praise and admiration."--Maxine KuminA compilation of archival materials accompanies this collection of forty years of Alice James Books poetry. Nearly 150 authors are represented in chronological order. Maxine Kumin states, "the list of authors is remarkable for its breadth, variety, and passion. The assortment is idiosyncratic, the range of voices and styles embraces the familiar personal narrative voice and the innovative." Contributors include Jane Kenyon, Fanny Howe, Forrest Gander, Jean Valentine, B.H. Fairchild, Matthea Harvey, Brian Turner, and Cole Swensen.Anne Marie Macari's most recent book She Heads into the Wilderness was published in 2008 by Autumn House Press. She is also the author of Gloryland (Alice James Books, 2005), and Ivory Cradle, which won the APR/Honickman First Book Prize in 2000. Macari founded and teaches in the low-residency MFA program in poetry and poetry in translation at Drew University.Carey Salerno is the executive director of Alice James Books. She earned an MFA in poetry from New England College and teaches in the BFA program at the University of Maine at Farmington. Her first poetry collection, Shelter, won a 2007 Kinereth Gensler Award and was published in 2009.Former US Poet Laureate Maxine Kumin, winner of the Pulitzer and Ruth Lilly prizes, is the author of Where I Live: New & Selected Poems 1990-2010 (W. W. Norton & Company), her seventeenth volume, which won the 2011 Los Angeles Times Book Prize in Poetry.

Author Biography

Anne Marie Macari's most recent book, She Heads Into the Wilderness, was published in 2008 by Autumn House Press. She is also the author of Gloryland (Alice James Books, 2005), and Ivory Cradle, which won the APR/Honickman First Book Prize in 2000. Macari's work has been widely published in magazines including Poetry International, The American Poetry Review, Five Points, TriQuarterly, Bloomsbury Review, Shenandoah, The Cortland Review, The Iowa Review, and in anthologies including From the Fishouse (Persea Books, 2009) and Never Before: Poems About First Experiences (Four Way Books). Macari founded and teaches in the low-residency MFA program in poetry and poetry in translation at Drew University.
Carey Salerno is the Executive Director of Alice James Books. She earned an MFA in Poetry from New England College, and teaches for the BFA program at the University of Maine at Farmington. Her first poetry collection, Shelter, won a 2007 Kinereth Gensler Award and was published in 2009. Salerno lives in western Maine with her husband and two dogs, Daisy and Gatsby. Former US Poet Laureate, Maxine Kumin, winner of the Pulitzer and Ruth Lilly prizes, is the author of Where I Live: New & Selected Poems 1990-2010 (Norton), her 17th volume, which won the 2011 L.A. Times poetry book prize. She has taught at MIT, Brandeis, Princeton, Columbia, Washington University of St. Louis, and served on the Bread Loaf Writers Conference faculty for seven years. She and her husband live on a farm in New Hampshire.

Table of Contents

"The Mallard" Cornelia Veenendaal from The Trans-Siberian Railway 1 "Minority Report" Cornelia Veenendaal from Green Shaded Lamps 2 "In Reply to Letters of Condolence" Patricia Cumming from Afterwards 3 "Drawing Lesson" Patricia Cumming from Afterwards 4 "poem reluctantly written at quarter of four in the morning" Karen Lindsey from Falling off the Roof 5 "Snow Moon" Jean Pedrick from Wolf Moon 6 "Great Swelling Things" Jean Pedrick from Pride & Splendor 7 "home from our fathers" Ron Schreiber from Moving to a New Place 8 "After Reading Basho" Betsy Sholl from Changing Faces 9 "Bayhead, New Jersey 1906" Betsy Sholl from Appalachian Winter 10 "Bird Watching" Betsy Sholl from Rough Cradle 11 "Parsley" Marie Harris from Raw Honey 12 "Four Days of Rain" Robin Becker from Personal Effects 13 "Prairie" Robin Becker from Backtalk 14 "In Conversation" Robin Becker from Backtalk 15 "Training the Dog to Come" Robin Becker from Backtalk 16 "The Conversion of the Jews" Robin Becker from Backtalk 17 "Discovery" Jeannine Dobbs from Three Some Poems 19 "Permission, Berkeley" Marjorie Fletcher from 33 20 "Hydrangeas in Early Fall" Elizabeth Knies from Three Some Poems 21 "Childbirth" Marilyn Zuckerman from Personal Effects 22 "Groundhog" Kathleen Aguero from Thirsty Day 23 "The Painter" Beatrice Hawley from Making the House Fall Down 24 "The Travel Artist" Beatrice Hawley from Making the House Fall Down 25 "Nocturne" Beatrice Hawley from Making the House Fall Down 26 "Mountains" Beatrice Hawley from Making the House Fall Down 27 "The Neighbors Celebrate Spring" Joyce Peseroff from Hardness Scale 28 "September 7, 1846, in the desert." Ruth Whitman from Tamsen Donner: A Woman''s Journey 29 "July 25, 1846, along the Big Sandy." Ruth Whitman from Tamsen Donner: A Woman''s Journey 30 "Colors" Jane Kenyon from From Room to Room 31 "Six Poems from Anna Akhmatova" Jane Kenyon from From Room to Room 32 "Here" Jane Kenyon from From Room to Room 35 "Finding a Long Gray Hair" Jane Kenyon from From Room to Room 36 "The Suitor" Jane Kenyon from From Room to Room 37 "Disclaimer" Lee Rudolph from The Country Changes 38 "The Fireman''s Ball" Lee Rudolph from The Country Changes 39 "Dialogue" Lee Rudolph from The Country Changes 40 "The Old Cemetery" Jeffrey Schwartz from Contending with the Dark 41 "The Breadwinner" Alice Mattison from Animals 42 "A History" Willa Schneberg from Box Poems 43 "Misery Loves" by Larkin Warren from Old Sheets 44 "Girl" Ruth Lepson from Dreaming in Color 45 "The Weather Here" Robert Louthan from Shrunken Planets 46 "The Birds for Lucie" Ann Darr from Riding with the Fireworks 47 "Field Exercise" Kinereth Gensler from Without Roof 48 "For Nelly Sachs" Kinereth Gensler from Three Some Poems 49 "Destination" Kinereth Gensler from Without Roof 50 "Freshman, 1939" Kinereth Gensler from Journey Fruit 51 "Lowell Reading" John Hildebidle from The Old Chore 52 "Wait" Susan Snively from The Distance 53 "Dust" Susan Snively from The Distance 54 "Come a Daisy" Jacqueline Frank from No One Took a Country from Me 55 "Passing Through Les Eyzies" Jacqueline Frank from No One Took a Country from Me 56 "Argument for Parting" Miriam Goodman from Signal::Noise 57 "The Birdcarver" David McKain from The Common Life 58 "40 Nights on a River Barge" Catherine Anderson from In the Mother Tongue 59 "Lettuce" Erica Funkhouser from Natural Affinities 60 "Translating Tsvetayeva" Celia Gilbert from Bonfire 61 "Through Glass" Celia Gilbert from An Ark of Sorts 62 "The Promise" Suzanne E. Berger from Legacies 63 "Steptoe Butte" Sue Standing from Deception Pass 64 "Kansas, Sunstruck" Joan Joffe Hall from Romance & Capitalism at the Movies 65 from "Mission Hill" Fanny Howe from Robeson Street 66 "The Nursery" Fanny Howe from Robeson Street 67 "The Hunt" Helena Minton from The Canal Bed 69 "Dream" Carole Oles from Night Watches: Inventions on the Life of Maria Mitchell 70 "Migrations" Allison Funk from A Form of Conversion 71 "Crosscut and Chainsaw" Linnea Johnson from The Chicago Home 72 "Black Dog" Margo Lockwood from Black Dog 73 "The Hermit" Tom Absher from The Calling 74 "Fish" Tom Absher from The Calling 75 "Omen" Carole Borges from Disciplining the Devil''s Country 76 "The Doors" Nina Nyhart from French for Soldiers 77 "Ink Blots" Laurel Trivelpiece from Blue Holes 78 "Evening Calm" Forrest Gander from Rush to the Lake 79 "Particles" Nora Mitchell from Your Skin is a Country 80 "My World" Helene Davis from Chemo-Poet and Other Poems 81 "Windfall" Nancy Donegan from Forked Rivers 82 "The Rain" Sabra Loomis from Rosetree 83 "December Coming In" Rosamond Rosenmeier from Lines Out 84 "Mandelstam" Jean Valentine from Home*Deep*Blue 85 "The River at Wolf" Jean Valentine from The River at Wolf 86 "To Plath, to Sexton" Jean Valentine from The River at Wolf 87 "A Hum To Say I''m Missing Your Touch" Carol Potter from Before We Were Born 88 "Night Dive" Jeffrey Greene from To the Left of the Worshiper 89 "The Choice" Nancy Lagomarsino from The Secretary Parables 90 "Remission" Pamela Stewart from Infrequent Mysteries 91 "Painting" Alice Jones from The Knot 92 "His Body Like Christ Passed In And Out Of My Life" Timothy Liu from Vox Angelica 93 "Equinox: The Goldfinch" Cheryl Savageau from Home Country 94 "Comes Down Like Milk" Cheryl Savageau from Home Country 95 "Coming Down Rain From Light" Margaret Lloyd from This Particular Earthly Scene 96 "Father''s Day" Suzanne Matson from Durable Goods 98 "Available Light" David Williams from Traveling Mercies 99 "Bamboo Bridge" Doug Anderson from The Moon Reflected Fire 100 "Short Timer" Doug Anderson from The Moon Reflected Fire 101 "How to Pray" Deborah DeNicola from Where Divinity Begins 102 "Washing Beans" Rita Gabis from The Wild Field 103 "After You Died" Richard McCann from Ghost Letters 104 "One of the Reasons" Richard McCann from Ghost Letters 105 "Resurrection" Forrest Hamer from Call & Response 107 "No Stone" E.J. Miller Laino from Girl Hurt 108 "The Mouth of Grief" Robert Cording from Heavy Grace 109 "The Cup" Robert Cording from Heavy Grace 110 "The Book of God" Theodore Deppe from The Wanderer King 111 "Riding with the Prophet" Theodore Deppe from Children of the Air 112 "Invisible Dark" Cynthia Huntington from We Have Gone to the Beach 113 "The Sign" Sharon Kraus from Generation 114 "We Live in Bodies" Ellen Dor

Review

"Alice James Books has been one of the major forces in American poetry for the past four decades.... This is an essential book for readers who want to understand and enjoy contemporary American poetry." --Publishers Weekly, starred review ". . . a wild stretching voice through time and knowledge. . . . Lit from Inside is an enticing pick for any literary poetry collection. . ." --The Midwest Book Review "The history of American poetry is the history of the small press, and Alice James Books, true to its origins in the Seventies as a collective operation, is a large and very distinctive chapter in that history, well deserving of this anthology showcasing its poets and work, both experimental and traditional, that ranks among the most important of the past four decades. The next time a student poet asks me for an anthology that will teach her the art in its most exemplary and current state, this is the one I will hand her." --B.H. Fairchild "The founding members of Alice James Books welcomed me, in 1975, to a crew of feisty individuals committed to poetry. Unfettered by demands of market or profit, the press published--for forty years-- tantalizing collections. Culture; family; feminism; friendship; history; passion; racism; war: it's all in this anthology, a rewarding testimony to the independent spirit." --Robin Becker

Review Quote

"Alice James Books has been one of the major forces in American poetry for the past four decades.... This is an essential book for readers who want to understand and enjoy contemporary American poetry." -- Publishers Weekly , starred review "The history of American poetry is the history of the small press, and Alice James Books, true to its origins in the Seventies as a collective operation, is a large and very distinctive chapter in that history, well deserving of this anthology showcasing its poets and work, both experimental and traditional, that ranks among the most important of the past four decades. The next time a student poet asks me for an anthology that will teach her the art in its most exemplary and current state, this is the one I will hand her." --B.H. Fairchild "The founding members of Alice James Books welcomed me, in 1975, to a crew of feisty individuals committed to poetry. Unfettered by demands of market or profit, the press published--for forty years-- tantalizing collections. Cuure&ulture; family; femism&minism; friendship; histy&istory; passion; racism; war: it's all in this anthology, a rewarding testimony to the independent spirit." --Robin Becker

Competing Titles

The Poet's Child: A Copper Canyon Anthology (Copper Canyon Press Anthology) Michael Wiegers 9781556591754 12.00 Copper Canyon Press 07/07/2002 Legitimate Dangers: American Poets of the New Century Michael Dumanis 9781932511291 26.00 Sarabande Books 01/01/2006 American Hybrid: A Norton Anthology of New Poetry David St. John 9780393333756 25.95 W. W. Norton & Company 03/30/2009

Excerpt from Book

Introduction by Maxine Kumin Forty years old and flourishing--a remarkable record for a small nonprofit press-- Alice James Books deserves praise and admiration. Founded in 1973 by seven idealists--five women and two men, all of whom are represented herein--their stated goal, to involve the poets themselves in the publishing process, and to provide a venue for women at a time when such access to publication was extremely limited, has been handsomely fulfilled. (Men are also represented, though in small numbers.) The Press takes its name from the sister of luminaries William and Henry, whose own gifts went unremarked in her lifetime. Alice James has remained a cooperative. It sponsors two annual book competitions: The Kinereth Gensler Award and the Beatrice Hawley Award, whose winners are named to the editorial board and take part in selecting ensuing collections. The Kundiman Prize, open to all Asian American poets with any number of published books, was inaugurated in 2010 and the AJP Translation series preceded it in 2008. Arranged chronologically, the list of authors is remarkable for its breadth, variety, and passion. This is a big book: a reader needs fortitude to undertake its 207 pages, but anthologies are meant to be sipped, not gulped thirstily. Nevertheless, in gradual and measured swallows, I have downed the entire collection, 130-odd disparate celebratory, elegiac, lyrical, lofty, comic, surreal, imagist, formalist, postmodern bards. The assortment is idiosyncratic, the range of voices and styles embraces the familiar personal narrative voice and the innovative, often dissonant music of more experimental poets. It has been pointed out that the poet''s vocation is in itself a declaration of independence. It has, as Stanley Kunitz once remarked, no market value. Hence, it is all but incorruptible. This anthology owes allegiance to none, other than the poets who have been selected by the cooperative board. Ed Ochester, introducing a forty-year anthology of University of Pittsburgh poets, sagely described the university and small independent presses as "the garage bands of the publishing industry." Now let us strike up the music. What could be more incongruent than the juxtaposition of seriocomic, irreverent, loquacious David Kirby with his long narrative line and lyrical, elliptical poet of brevity, Jane Mead? Thanks to their coincident publication dates, Kirby''s The Temple Gate Called Beautiful (2008) and Mead''s The Usable Field of the same year, they abut in the table of contents. Kirby''s title poem opens: It says HELL IS HOT HOT HOT HOT/and NO SEX WITH MEN ALOUD/ and NO ICE WATER IN HELL/ on the hundreds of washers and dryers/ and air conditioner housings that stud/ the land around outsider artist W. C. Rice''s house... And Mead''s "The Origin" - the title runs right into the poem: of what happened is not in language--/ of this much I am certain./Six degrees south, six east----//and you have it: the bird/with the blue feathers, the brown bird---/same white breasts.... On to elegiac poems--isn''t all poetry elegiac au fond? All poems are rooted in the mortality we bemoan; if we were immortal we would have no need to record human feelings in poetry. So many poems here moved me, but none more profoundly than Kathleen Sheeder Bonanno, whose poems about the murder of her daughter that gave rise to Slamming Open the Door, are masterly. The title poem opens: In his Russian greatcoat, slamming open the door with an unpardonable bang, and he has been here ever since. and concludes: Even as I sit here, he stands behind me clamping two colossal hands on my shoulders and bends down and whispers to my neck: From now on, you write about me. Other elegies I found notable include "Washing Beans," by Rita Gabis; E. Miller Laino''s poem, "No Stone;" Catherine Barnett''s "The Disbelieving," and David Williams''s "Available Light." And what would an anthology be without some poems about poets writing poems? Here are four: "Lowell Reading," by John Hildebidle; "Wait," by Susan Snively; "To Plath, to Sexton," by Jean Valentine, and Lee Rudolph''s "The Fireman''s Ball," a hilarous plea for poets to pressure the public the way firefighters do as they hawk tickets to their dance: "...does anyone/ admire the poets'' long brass stanzas,/ their black, pliant, waterproof metaphors...'" Poems about family and poems about relationships abound. In the ironically titled "Father''s Day," Suzanne Matson describes [o]ne father, mine, sits far away and waits to die, mumbling old grudges to his tireless self.... he sits pissed off and bony, a gray silt of whiskers and wild brows and flaking skin.... But let us not dwell on that. Let us dwell on the rhythmic ringing notes of his hammer in the backyard thirty years ago ...And everything was green: the big house, the little house, the backyard and our tightly furled lives. Miriam Goodman''s "Argument for Parting" ends "And I don''t marry./ I don''t buy land./ I get older by myself" and Tom Absher''s "The Hermit"closes with "Winter and I have a talent for emptiness--/ this is going to be a sweet exile"; these two poets suggest the rejection of earlier relationships and the acceptance of an independent hermetic life. Ellen Dore Watson''s "One of the Ones" and Frank X. Gaspar''s "One Thousand Blossoms" seem to be cries from the heart; Watson writes "I won''t forget you and you and you, each/ with a brutal truth to send away/ in a little boat, let me be one of the ones/ to keep it afloat..." Gaspar declares "You don''t want less love--this ground has been covered before--/ you want more love, even when you can''t say what it means." In "Prairie" Robin Becker describes "[t]wo women in a field/ in the middle of our lives, / while the whole wrecked world/ slides into tomorrow./ Her hands come to my body and I would rest/ in that simplicity, this field this night...." Poems about war deserve more space than I can allot them here. Both Doug Anderson, author of The Moon Reflected Fire and Brian Turner, of Here, Bullet, have seen combat and their poems have been wrung from it. In "Short Timer" Anderson reports "I syringed the long gash with sterile water/...the man saying Oh God and already the slur,/ the drool.../ What was in the 20cc''s of brain he lost?" Turner''s title poem arrests us with "And I dare you to finish/ what you''ve started, Because here, Bullet,/ here is where I complete the word you bring/ hissing through the air, here is where I moan/ the barrel''s cold esophagus,triggering / my tongue''s explosives..." Theodore Deppe, formerly a nurse, writes in "The Book of God" about the photo of a crucified girl, "one of several Bosnian children nailed to the doors/ of their own homes to frighten the parents away." These poets have excoriating tales to tell; we need to listen. Three poets--Kazim Ali, Anne Marie Macari, and Henrietta Goodman-- are represented here with poems about faith. Ali, a Muslim, writes about the Hagar and Ismael story. Macari cites Mary and Luke. Goodman states, "God as an engine seems right. Not God/ to make promises to, or in front of, /but God to grind promises up// burn them like gas." Two interesting poems about occupations deserve mention. Erica Funkhouser''s title poem, "Women Who Clean Fish," opens: The women who clean fish are all named Rose...// Under plastic aprons their breasts/ foam and bubble...//they pack the bodies in, ten per box,/ their tails crisscrossed as if in sacrament.// It is the iridescent scales that stick...lighting up hours late in a dark room." Memorable too, is B.H. Fairchild''s "Keats," which opens: "I knew him. He ran the lathe next to mine./ Perfectionist, a madman, even on overtime... and I remember the red hair flaming/ beneath the lamp, calipers measuring out/ the last cut, his hands flicking iron burrs/ like shooting stars through the shadows." One dream poem startled me. (I am sure there are others, but nothing quite so dramatic.) It is a persona poem, from Night Watches, Carole Oles''s collection about the mid-nineteenth century American woman astronomer, Maria Mitchell. Full of foreboding about her reception in academia, Mitchell dreams, "I am delivered to Harvard/ in a black carriage with curtains// The lecture hall churns// I open my mouth to begin/ and my teeth spill out/ powdery as chalk." Dear reader, I''ve been there; possibly some of you have, too. In addition to finding widely diverging thematic concerns, I searched for varying prosodic approaches. I needed to look no further than the first poem in the collection, "Mallard," by Cornelia Veenendaal for the ballast of metaphor. The bird is "a pilot of the inland waters"; he uses his "brilliant paddles" during migration to "row over whole states...." Many poets use stanza breaks to shift time or place or mood. Linnea Johnson moves from her own "crosscut handsaw" to "yours" in the second stanza, then leaps to "I am in love with you from the neck down" in the third. And then there is the deliberate density of lines that do not invite scansion but run pellmell without punctuation, capitalizing the first letter of each line to lend the poem a formal aspect. See Matthea Harvey''s "In Defense of Our Overgrown Garden." Anaphora, caesura, internal rhymes, the sound effects of alliteration, assonance, and consonance all add varying tonalities. There is one prose poem, a scant handful of poems in rhyme, an acute shortage of sonnets, villanelles, and sestinas. Perhaps this i

Description for Sales People

Celebrates 40 years of poetry from one of the nations leading poetry only presses. Contributors to the anthology include Jane Kenyon, Fanny Howe, Forrest Gander, Jean Valentine, B.H. Fairchild, Matthea Harvey, Brian Turner, Cole Swensen. Nearly 150 authors represented. Introduction by award winning author, Maxine Kumin. Excellent choice for course adoption as this volume includes a diverse range of voices and styles.

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